M without O is called edging. And for me edging only worked for so long until I just felt that I needed or deserved an O. I tempted relapse every time I’d edge… it would eventually win out. Early on in my recovery stages I would do this and wasnt being fully transparent about P-M with my sponsor. I thought I had found a loophole, a gray area but that wasnt real recovery for me
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Yeah man that’s totally been my experience of it. You can only edge for so long before youve got to nut. And that’s when your willpower is the weakest. I’ve got to do my best to keep my arousal down all day every day otherwise it always escalates to p eventually.
Trust, I know the feeling all too well. It can be a slippery slope and once im down hill its like hell working my way back up
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Yeah the further you go up the harder it is to come back down. I Do best when I try to stay as close to zero as I can every day and get some positive momentum going but man it can get out of control real quick.
Here’s my graph, the flat line early on was previously a “porn free” period, but after I did a disclosure to my now ex-GF I realised I was lying to myself as I had been going on dating apps during that time, so deleted that “stretch”. I know it’s not strictly porn, but still cheap shit dopamine, and a betrayal of her trust when at the time we had been trying to work things out.
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Nice one dude 
you’re almost at six months / half a year!
Thanks man, yeah a few more weeks to go to hit 6 months sober which will be cool.
I’ve found I’m less bothered about the milestones now, like it’s nice to see that I’m building my time in recovery, but previously when I couldn’t get much past 20 days it was pretty much all I could focus on.
Now it feels so much easier because I’m not focusing on just reaching the next milestone. I think now I just have to not get complacent, keep putting the work in, keep going to meetings and seeing my therapist.
Feels like I’m turning a corner now, in my last SAA meeting I put my hand up voluntarily and shared for the first time, and then after the meeting I asked for a sponsor.
I have done the dating app thing as well and like you said for a quick dopamine fix. I was able to let my lust and fantasies run wild. I wouldnt even engage in conversations, just take in the lust hits while scrolling and looking at the images and reading the bios and then letting my brain do the work of putting together stories of first meet ups, hanging out aand leading to the sexual thoights. I was really bad off
That slippery slope is dangerous. It’s amazing how pernicious lust is. It just seeps in like mold in between the walls, and before you know it the house is crumbling 
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This is so well said.
Edging is bad. Very bad. Your brain is receiving those same chemicals still.
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I am new here. Been struggling a lot with PMO. It has to stop. Today is my day one, again.
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Welcome, you’re in the right place
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You have made the right decision and I commend you for that, if you’d like there is this method that is helping me called the easy peasy way to quit pmo addiction it’s free and there is an audio version of this as well.
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Need to get this out.
I had a nice clean streak going. Was at 80 days lust free.
Yesterday I failed to attend the SA meeting. I try and go every few weeks.
Big mistake.
I got stressed in the evening as well.
That stress led to watching porn at night. Was up and couldn’t sleep.
I didn’t masturbate or edge but just watched.
Then this morning had sex. Now those down feelings are back. Shit! I don’t know why I can’t stop!
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Sorry to hear about that. I’ve been there.
How do you define lust? What is lust, and what isn’t lust?
Thanks. For me it’s craving sexual release.
It could be masturbation, porn, sex. That sexual dopamine I want to turn down.
I feel it’simportant, but I don’t know what to think about it. Why is important to define such things? And how to find proper resources? There are many myths and BS about sexuality and masturbation.
Teoretically we could keep the goal simple: avoid porn, don’t use body, although I experienced that it’s not enough.
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It’s important for the same reason that defining a peanut is important if a person is allergic to peanuts. Peanuts, in that case, need to be defined - because defining things enables us to recognize them, to distinguish a threat from a non-threat - and then the threat needs to be removed from life and, through careful daily effort, kept out. The risk of not defining the threat is that I will die from anaphylaxis.
In my case, I am allergic to lust, and I must define it for the same reason.
There are many tens of thousands of people who have worked lust- and/or sex-addiction recovery programs that have been carefully tested, reviewed, and revised over time - including SA, SAA, and SLAA, for example, and beyond those there are also more general recovery programs (SMART Recovery, Dharma Recovery, etc etc - see this thread: Resources for our recovery) - and there is ample research- and practice-informed literature available from those programs, to help you develop a reliable working definition of lust.
It is up to you and you only to look deep into yourself and pay attention to signs, and seek input from knowledgeable, experienced people to interpret those signs. Then put their input into action, pay attention for signs again, and repeat the consultation process.
What I share here is my personal experience. I tried controlling my body for many years. Control, in my case, included software blocks, accountability software, and many many many different ways to try to control what my eyes could or could not see, or what my hands could or could not do. I tried this for decades, actually. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that it was a fruitless effort. The problem was not caused by anything in my body or by what my body was or was not doing (including what my body was viewing, or what hormones - including dopamine - were being produced in my body), and the solution did not start in my body. The solution had nothing to do with control.
For me, the solution was deeper. It was psychological.
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Maybe you mean triggers? Definitely recognizing what is trigger is very important.
Lust seems to be easy to define: it’s the moment when you feel the pressure to “use” your body in sexual way.
Unfortunately I need to dive deeper into my personality, because reading Easypeasy is not the ultimate solution.
After reading book I felt like I don’t need PMO totally, but additional thing that helped was installing the app. I was focused on achieving milestones, goals were close so it was relatively easy to quit.
Now, after several days, there is less excitement on achieving goals and I feel my mind is travelling toward old habit. Yesterday and today I had some crisis, but I survived.
On the other side, I’ve heard first 21 days are crucial, and during this period mind plays most tricks to make us return to bad habits. I need only 4 days to achieve this threshold.
In my case solution is also located much deeper. Even lust is not a problem, it’s rather effect of another problem(s).
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In SA they refer to real sexaholic experiencing lust as an allergy, which they adopted from AA referring to alcohol as such.
Triggers is one thing to learn and be mindful of.
I can be lusting in the grocery store and not be at a place where I can use my body to please myself. Mine is based a lot with fantasy.
With the soul searching and looking into personality, what you’ll find is character defects. Once you’re aware of what your triggers are, you can use tools to address them and also know what trigers impact them.
For me, there is no set day goal that will help curb my lust cravings. It’s on a day to day basis and sometimes by the minute or hour. I am a lustaholic/sexaholic and will remain so. What I can do is fellowship, learn from my experiences and past, utilize my program, SA, reach out to my sponsor for ESH and work steps to become a better me and not let lust dictate my life and actions as it once did.
As my sponsor advised me… lust wasn’t my problem, it was my solution for problems in my life. It was a way I chose to self sooth, isolate, numb myself so as not to feel and not deal with real life situations, my emoitons or feelings.
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